


Macro Focus

by Itsallfine



Series: Watch What They Photograph [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Friends to Lovers, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Photos, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 16:14:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3902635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Itsallfine/pseuds/Itsallfine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you want to learn what someone fears losing, watch what they photograph.” — Unknown</p><p>At first glance, the photos on Sherlock's phone mean nothing. At second glance, they mean everything.</p><p>Direct sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/3795283">Through Another Lens</a>. You should probably read that first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Macro Focus

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Enfoque macro](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4159596) by [lasobrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lasobrina/pseuds/lasobrina)



> Thank you again to [May_Shepard](http://archiveofourown.org/users/May_Shepard) ([elizabeth-twist](http://elizabeth-twist.tumblr.com/) on tumblr) for her beta reading and encouragement. She's got some awesome projects on the burner, y'all, I can't wait. 
> 
> A sincere gushing thank you to everyone who has read my stories and left comments or kudos over the past few weeks. I never thought these three little stories would get such love. I appreciate every single one of you. 
> 
> Please visit me on tumblr at [librarylock](http://librarylock.tumblr.com/) for fic updates, Johnlocking, and general shenanigans.

Sherlock was just about to put a tray of skin samples in the microwave when his mobile chimed. New picture message from John. The data he’d asked for, a close-up photo of Lestrade’s hair. Finally. He tapped the tiny preview image to bring up the full screen view.  
  
Just as he’d suspected: The yellow-tinged lighting in the pub made Lestrade’s hair look more blonde than gray, meaning any witness of average intelligence and observation skills could easily give a false description of a suspect. The gray-haired ex-father-in-law, then. He dashed off a quick text to John:  
  
_Took you long enough. –SH_  
  
_There were complications. Tell you about it when I got home._  
  
Sherlock smirked to himself. He could perfectly picture Lestrade’s terribly confused expression—the man was always confused, really, it was a perpetual state of being for him—and he played through the likely scenarios that could have followed. Lestrade distracting John with pointless questions about his motives, pretending it was some kind of passable interrogation technique. Lestrade stealing the phone, then surreptitiously turning the conversation back to football while he deleted the photo. Lestrade playing keep-away until he had a chance to delete it. Sherlock would know which it was as soon as John walked through the door. He tapped out another text.  
  
_When are you coming home? –SH_  
  
A brief pause.  
   
_Right now._  
  
Sherlock grinned and stood, tugging at the bottom of his suit jacket. The pub was only a few blocks from 221b Baker Street, so he would have approximately five minutes until John returned home. He covered the skin samples in cling film and stashed the tray in the refrigerator, hesitated, then took out a smaller tray of mold samples he was essentially finished with. Didn’t want to make it look like he’d been cleaning up _too_ much. He filled the kettle and set it to boil, then dashed back into the sitting room and threw himself into his chair just as a key turned in the downstairs lock. Sherlock steepled his fingers under his chin and fixed his gaze on the door as it swung open to admit one fairly buzzed John Watson.  
  
When their eyes met, John’s face broke into a happy, open smile that immediately shut down. From the rucked up angle of John’s undershirt, the phone incident had definitely resulted in Lestrade playing keep-away. Sloshed beer soaked the cuff of one sleeve. Significantly thinner wallet—either drank several pints or lost a bet on the game.  
  
John pursed his lips and looked down and to the right. Uncomfortable. Working himself up to something. Getting ready to lie, perhaps? Sherlock waited. The kettle clicked off in the kitchen, but he ignored it.  
  
“Can I see your phone?” John finally asked.  
  
Sherlock furrowed his brows, and his eyes darted to the clear outline of a phone in John’s pocket. “What do you need my phone for? You have one of your own.”  
  
John looked away again, his face twisted into what Sherlock labeled his ‘angry smile’: Part-grimace, part-laugh, part-snarl. He shut the door behind him and strode to the center of the room. “You’ve asked me for my phone dozens of times and I’ve given it without hesitation. Will you please just let me see your phone?”  
  
Elevated heart rate. Licking his lips. Clenching/unclenching fist. Indirect eye contact. The answer mattered a lot, was important in some way.  
  
Sherlock pulled the phone from his pocket and handed it over without further argument.  
  
John’s face relaxed slightly in relief, though the nervousness remained in the tightness around his eyes. Sherlocked watched John’s hand as he hit a few keys: swipe to unlock, password, photo apps folder, photo album.  
  
Photo album?  
  
John swiped through the pictures slowly, taking a few seconds to consider each one. Four, five, six, seven photos, then dropped his hand to his side, the phone hanging loose in his grip. All the tightness bled out of his face, replaced with an expression Sherlock couldn’t precisely name. Resigned? Sad? He mentally flipped through the images on his phone, then froze. _Not good?_  
  
“I can explain,” he said stiffly, but John just shook his head and handed the phone back.  
  
“What’s there to explain? It all looks like nothing. Evidence for a case, maybe.” His mouth was tight.  
  
He must not have recognized the photos for what they were, then. And that made John... upset? So he was hoping for something else. But what? Something in Sherlock’s chest swelled, and he snuck a look up at John through his lashes. Should he? The risk was...moderate. If he and John weren’t on the same page, he could easily play it off as obscure data collection in the unlikely event that John deduced the truth behind the photos.  
  
Sherlock’s eyes caught on the tight, unhappy lines at the corner of John’s mouth and he couldn’t look away. He flipped the phone over and unlocked it again, then pressed it back into John’s faintly trembling hand.  
  
“Look again,” he said.  
  
“Sherlock, I don’t—”  
  
“The first photo is Lestrade’s hair. You know about that one. Skip it.”  
  
John sighed, but swiped to the right and brought up the next photo. “Right, it’s just a blurry mess.”  
  
Sherlock called up the details of the photo in his mind, then looked away, took a deep breath in preparation. “It’s the skin on the back of your hand. The dark blur on the right side of the photo is your gun. You were cleaning it.”  
  
The tremor in John’s hand stilled. He swiped to the next image. “This one?”  
  
“Your hair after you got home last Tuesday.”  
  
John nodded a bit. “It had been raining.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
Another swipe. John looked up for the explanation.  
  
“Your jumper. The one from our first case.”  
  
John hesitated, licked his lips, then swiped again, and Sherlock bit his lip. It would be obvious, even to John, the sheer sentiment, bordering on obsession. Too revealing? He hesitated, waiting to see if John would figure it out for himself.  
  
John huffed a tiny laugh, and Sherlock stiffened. “Are these…my eyelashes?” John asked, never taking his eyes off the phone screen.  
  
Sherlock rocked back on his heels, opened his mouth. Closed it again. Hummed. “The blue in the bottom corner is your iris.”  
  
“How do you even get these photos without me noticing?”  
  
“Camera sound is disabled. You always assume I’m texting. Simple enough.”  
  
Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and whirled around, stalking to the window as John scrolled to the next photo. The one that would end everything, probably. So transparent. Beyond mere sentiment, so far beyond friendship as to be uncomfortable for even the most open of flatmates. He heard the tiny gasp as John made the connection.  
  
All the breath rushed out of Sherlock’s lungs. His chest was imploding, or exploding, cracking open or crumbling to pieces.  
  
In a flurry of motion, Sherlock stepped up onto his chair and walked straight over it on his way to the door, snatching the phone from John’s hand along the way. The photo of John’s bottom lip still glowed bright and pink on the screen.  
  
Sherlock’s voice was sharp and cold. “Well, I don’t expect you to understand my methods of data collection. After all, you can hardly—”  
  
He was yanked back by John’s hand in his. He spun around, fully intending to snatch his hand back and deliver a biting comment, but John’s fingers tightened around his. Their eyes met. He couldn’t move.  
  
With slow, deliberate motions, John pulled his own phone from his pocket and pressed it into the hand he held, curling Sherlock’s fingers around it.  
  
“Just look,” he said, his voice rough and low.  
  
Sherlock hesitated, feeling the slick case in his hand and the lingering warmth of John’s fingers. He rotated the phone in his hand a few times, his mind racing, racing.  
  
He unlocked it and opened the photo album.  
  
The first was Lestrade’s hair, as expected. He swiped it away as soon as it popped up. Irrelevant.  
  
The second was a close-up of his own face, a smear of fresh pesto across one cheek. He glared back at himself, a sense memory of basil and olive oil filling his nose.  
  
The third was him with the milk from last week. Cold condensation had soaked his hand as he hoisted the jug for John to see. (It was the wrong kind, but he couldn’t have John getting _too_ used to such luxuries from him.)  
  
The fourth was from that night with the bee documentary. _Idiots._  
  
The fifth was him playing the violin. _Hm._  
  
The sixth: Sulking. The seventh: Playing with the gun.  
  
His sock index. At the park. Petting a dog. At the microscope. Hugging Mrs. Hudson.  
  
Then the photo from that night. The night with the scotch, warm and smoky, and their knees rubbing together in a way that shouldn’t have mattered but did, so much, tortuous and perfect. His skin had felt hyper-alive that night, every tiny sensation brand new and electric. The memory of his own tongue around his finger, chasing the taste of liquor and tracing his fingerprints, wishing it were something else, wishing it were—  
  
A shuddering exhale drew his attention back to John, whose flushed cheeks matched the pounding heat under Sherlock’s skin. John took a hesitant step forward.  
  
“I didn’t even realize, at first,” he said, his voice ragged and tight, forcing the words out. “It wasn’t until Greg was scrolling through the photos and I saw it as he must have—god. Most people have phones filled with pictures of their friends, their pets, their kids, their significant others.”  
  
Sherlock let his eyes fall shut. John was right, Lestrade was right, it was _obvious_ , painfully so. It had always felt so _good_ to be together, but Sherlock thought he’d kept everything close to his chest. A few photos and everything was unraveling.  
  
“And your phone. Yours is filled with…” Sherlock trailed off. Couldn’t say it.  
  
So John said it for him.  
  
“You.”  
  
John let the word sit in the air for a minute. Let it change everything. Then:  
  
“And yours…”  
  
Sherlock took a deep gulp of air and forced himself to meet John’s eyes.  
  
“It’s you. It’s always you, John Watson.”  
  
John inhaled sharply through his nose, pressed his lips together, blinked again and again and again. A surge of adrenaline hit Sherlock’s system. His stomach turned in on itself, and his hand shook as he shoved his phone back in his pocket. His other hand held John’s phone, with all its damning, beautiful evidence, and for a moment he couldn’t bear to give it up. He wanted to look at the pictures again, to text them to himself, to slide his finger across the screen again and again to reveal the truth a hundred times over: that he was _loved_.  
  
But he held it out to John anyway. Silently offering.  
  
John wrapped his palm around the phone and curled his fingers around Sherlock’s proffered hand. Sherlock’s lips tugged to one side.  
  
“Well then. That’s...good.  
  
John licked his lips, and a true smile broke onto his face. His eyes darted down to Sherlock’s mouth, then back up to his eyes.  
  
“Yes. Good.”  
  


**Author's Note:**

> You may have noticed this is a series now. I'm planning at least one more story: a mature or explicit photo-themed coda for John and Sherlock. [Keep an eye out](http://librarylock.tumblr.com/)! 
> 
> Thank you for reading.


End file.
